


All I want is to be your harbor

by leiascully



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"River Song, I presume."</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I want is to be your harbor

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-6.08 "Let's Kill Hitler"  
> Concrit: Welcome  
> A/N: Just when I thought my mojo was gone, it's revived by a complicated space-time event of an episode. Have a story. Thanks to Vienna Teng and "Harbor" for the title.  
> Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ and all related characters are the property of Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, and BBC. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

The Doctor squints into the workings of his time machine. He's sitting in the cradle underneath the console of the TARDIS; she had a bit of a jostle on the last adventure, needs some tuning up. He solders one tiny circuit, pushing the goggles up on his forehead when he's done, and lays a comforting hand on a mechanism that he isn't really sure of the purpose of, even after all these years. He's gazing deeper into the old girl's workings when there's a sort of a pop in the air, inaudible to most, but he's got a practiced ear. Anyway, it isn't quite a pop, per se, but the almost-sound of the displacement of the local air, a bit of a wibble in space-time.

"River Song, I presume," he says quietly, his back to her.

"In the flesh," she says. "How did you know?"

"There aren't that many people around with vortex manipulators," he says, still without turning around. "Or many who can find the TARDIS. And if you were still going by Melody, I'd be dead by now."

"You will be soon enough," she says, but there's a warmth in her voice and a sadness that he understands better than anyone else in the universe. There will never be enough time for the two of them, not even in a TARDIS.

"Where've you been?" he asks.

"Oh," she says, and he can hear her shoes tapping on the floor as she shifts. "Around. Knocked about for a while, visited some places, found out a few things about myself and the world. Changed my name. Picked up a few new habits, mostly stopped killing people."

"I'm sorry," he says.

"For what, my love?" she says, coming up closer behind him.

"All of it," he says. "How much I've taken from you. Your whole life, really."

"Oh, sweetie," she sighs. "You really are a singular individual. In all of space and time, I've never met anyone quite so egocentric as you are. And I've known emperors and gods, after all. As if we don't all of us have things to apologize for."

He turns around in the sling and his heart thuds at the sight of her. She looks like _River_ , the newness worn off her, her eyes weary but pleased to see him. He longs to pull her into his arms and breathe in the scent of her. Their upside-down, inside-out, back-to-front love affair has had its disadvantages to be sure. She was in love, aching for his touch while he was wary; he realized he had fallen for her only when she was freshly regenerated and killing him with a kiss. The more he wants her, the farther he finds himself from her, and they always meet in the wrong order, except perhaps now.

"Don't waste time, my love," she says with a smile. "It's rare enough to have a moment like this. Don't spend it all on guilt."

He almost wants to laugh at that. He's filled his days with guilt. Rose, Martha, Donna, the Ponds, River herself: he stole something precious from each of them. The list could go on, if he wanted to remember, from Sarah Jane all the way back to Gallifrey. "Because of me, you spent your childhood in a military camp being raised as an assassin."

"Yes, and look how well my life has turned out," she says. "Yes, I was raised by murderous zealots, but unlike most fanatics, my beliefs kept me alive long enough for me to realize just how dangerous they were. Just think, if I hadn't been trained to hunt you and to defend myself, I'd've never been able to keep up with you. I would have been left behind, like all the others. Instead, here I am."

"Thank you for that reminder," he says.

"I know you don't forget them," she says compassionately, but she's still standing a little way off, leaning against the TARDIS. "Believe me, my love, I know about soldiering on through the ache of it."

"I as good as killed them," he says with a hint of bitterness, thinking of Rose stranded in Bad Wolf Bay and Donna on the phone, brushing him off. Martha did all right. Martha had never needed him in the first place, and even so, he took her loyalty and repaid it with coldness. He hadn't deserved Martha. He doesn't deserve River either; without him and his meddling, there would have been no reason to take her from her parents or to coax her into using the balance of her lives to save him. He is selfish; it's all the worse to find out he's as afraid of death and as self-serving as any human. And there River stands, living her last life, and he'll have that from her too in the end. "I've as good as killed you, River. I lied to you and you gave me all your time."

"'The last full measure of devotion', one of the American presidents called it." She purses her lips. "The Doctor is a story worth dying for, as long as it's a tale of healing and hope. Who was Rose before you met her? Who was Donna? You gave them as much as you took from them. Even Martha, though she started in a better place - she couldn't have saved the world without you giving her the opportunity."

"Martha would have found a way," he says morosely.

"Probably," River agrees, her mouth quirking. "But if you hadn't come to little Amelia Pond, her daughter never would have had the lives to give you, after she tried to kill you. And I've led a very rich and interesting life indeed, so you needn't feel guilty about that."

"I needn't," he says, "but I shall."

She rolls her eyes. "Beloved idiot. Stop fiddling with your ship and come kiss me."

He gets tangled up in the sling in his haste - wanting her like this makes him feel newly regenerated, clumsy and awkward and unsure of the limits of his body - but she hauls him to his feet and there's nothing uncertain at all about the way their mouths meet. Everything is right with her hands fisted in his shirt and his hair and her body pressed snugly up against his. The two of them against the universe, doing their best to stop time for long enough to be in love. He'd be happy to melt into her, to let her direct their lives a while; it's a burden being the Doctor. He's only old, not omniscient the way everyone seems to think. He never wanted to be anybody's savior. He never wanted to be anybody's killer. Having a family, being a lover: those were worthwhile things to do with his life. He wonders if it's too late for a clean slate.

"River," he says.

"Hush," she says. "Don't tell me anything you'll regret. Just promise me that you'll come when I call."

"Always," he says, kissing her forehead.

"There we are, then," she says lightly, smiling at him. "That's all I need."

"That's all?" He strokes her cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"Well, another kiss wouldn't go amiss," she grins.

"I ruined your life and all you want is a kiss?" he murmurs.

"You ruined my life and you saved it," she says. "Just like all the others. There's a price we pay for seeing the glory of the universe, but it's a price we pay willingly. So stop believing that it's all you, my love. You're not so powerful as that. We choose to come along. And I got quite a few advantages from my strange childhood, so you can knock off feeling bad about it. Anyway, I grew up. That's about all anyone can hope for."

"My bespoke assassin," he says with another pang of guilt.

She eyes him sternly. "And if it hadn't been for your TARDIS, I wouldn't even have been made of the right fabric to be tailor-made for you, or of the right fabric to get myself out of that prison. You're not Frankenstein's monster, building yourself a bride. They tried to build me to kill you, but we make our own destinies, my love. I don't love you because I was made for you. I came to that on my own. Don't rob me of my will. You of all people ought to know better."

"Some people never learn," he says, but he can't help smiling a bit. There isn't a force in the universe that can stand against the will of River Song in any incarnation.

"Never too late for a little education," she tells him. "Now how about that kiss?"

He leans into her, kissing her with all the conviction he can muster, as if he can persuade time to eddy around them for a while, to leave them this moment of discovery and of joy. It has taken them all the time in all the worlds to come to this point, the whole of history. He holds her close, as if by sheer force of will the two of them can rewrite time and give themselves another age to lie in each other's arms, telling each other the stories of their lives and writing new stories together, and bringing brilliance to the lives of people who never knew how magnificent they could be. He longs for a few hours of simple domesticity: a cup of tea, a quiet cuddle among rumpled covers, the simple joy of watching her wash her face or smooth lotion over her skin.

"Never a dull moment," she says, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"Pity," he says.

"Mmm," she agrees. "We'll take our time then."

"From whom?" He cranes his head to look down into her laughing eyes.

"The undeserving," she says with a smile. "If only we could take it from our younger, more foolish selves."

"No one more undeserving," he agrees.

"Well," she says. "We've got health and strength. We'll steal the rest, or so the saying goes. Let's make the most of it while we've got time."

"Lead on," he says, and lets her tow him down the corridor to the room the TARDIS made for her. For them. For hope, for love, for things enduring. He brushes the wall with the fingers of the hand that isn't clasped in River's. The proper door opens as they approach and River sighs happily. He comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her, standing at the threshold. A metaphor, he thinks, and kisses River's shoulder.

"It's so good to be _home_ ," she says, and he couldn't agree more.


End file.
